Getting to the heart of our future housing needs
Published on 30 May 2024
With a projected 60 per cent population increase by 2051, Council needs to consider how to accommodate 30,000 new homes for an additional 60,000 residents in our municipality.
City of Maribyrnong Mayor, Cr Cuc Lam, said we need a plan to ensure there are enough homes in the right locations to meet everyone’s needs, while ensuring our suburbs are liveable and sustainable, recognising the shift in both demographics and the environmental landscape.
“Over recent years, there have been changes in local and state planning policy, a shift in the make-up of and size of our population, and increasing sustainability and cost of living challenges which we want to address,” she said.
Council is starting work on the development of a new Housing Strategy to guide housing across the municipality as it continues to grow and change.
It will seek to ensure housing is appropriately located and distributed across the City, provide certainty to our community about where change will occur and what form it will take, ensure future residential development is environmentally sustainable and helps mitigate the impacts associated with climate change, while also clarifying Council’s role in facilitating social and affordable housing.
“We understand managing growth and development pressures, while maintaining what people love about living in their neighbourhood, will be a challenge,” Mayor Lam said, “which is why we’re starting a dialogue now with our community to help us understand how residents think we can get the balance right.”
We know from previous conversations with our community that residents want more trees and greener spaces, value the character of their neighbourhoods, and want to see high quality design. We’re now asking some specific questions to gather feedback on:
- our community’s ideas and priorities on how we can accommodate everyone’s different housing needs
- the key things residents love about where they currently live, how we might protect and enhance those features in the future.
This initial engagement will inform the development of a discussion paper to be shared with the community for further comment in 2025, prior to the release of a draft Housing Strategy for feedback.
Be part of the initial housing conversation by completing the postcard in the Maribyrnong Messenger Winter 2024 edition, or engage online by midnight Sunday 30 June 2024 at yourcityyourvoice.com.au/housing
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